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This year’s flu shot will be missing a strain of influenza it’s protected against for more than a decade.

That’s because there have been no confirmed flu cases caused by the Influenza B/Yamagata lineage since spring 2020. And the Food and Drug Administration decided this year that the strain now poses little to no threat to human health.

Scientists have concluded that widespread physical distancing and masking practiced during the early days of COVID-19 appear to have pushed B/Yamagata into oblivion.

This surprised many who study influenza, as it would be the first documented instance of a virus going extinct due to changes in human behavior, said Dr. Rebecca Wurtz, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

“It is such an interesting and unique story,” Wurtz said, adding that if it were not for COVID, B/Yamagata would still be circulating.

One reason COVID mitigation efforts were so effective at eliminating B/Yamagata is there was already a fair amount of immunity in the population against this strain of flu, which was also circulating at a lower level, said Dr. Kawsar Talaat, an infectious disease physician at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In contrast, SARS-CoV-2 was a brand new virus that no one had encountered before; therefore, masking and isolation only slowed its transmission, but did not stop it.

The absence of B/Yamagata won’t change the experience of getting this year’s flu shot, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends to everyone over 6 months old. And unvaccinated people are no less likely to get the flu, as B/Victoria and two influenza A lineages are still circulating widely and making people sick. Talaat said the disappearance of B/Yamagata doesn’t appear to have lessened the overall burden of flu, noting that the level of illness that can be attributed to any strain varies from year to year.

The CDC estimates that between 12,000 and 51,000 people die every year from influenza.

However, the manufacturing process is simplified now that the vaccine is trivalent — designed to protect against three flu viruses — instead of quadrivalent, protecting against four. That change allows more doses to be produced, said Talaat.

Ultimately, the costs of continuing to include protection against B/Yamagata in the flu shot outweigh its benefits, said Talaat.

"If you include a strain for which you don't think anybody's going to get infected into a vaccine, there are some potential risks and no potential benefits," she said. "Even though the risks might be infinitesimal, the benefits are also infinitesimal."

Scientists and public health experts have discussed for the past couple years whether to pull B/Yamagata from the flu vaccine or wait for a possible reemergence, said Kevin R. McCarthy, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Vaccine Research. But McCarthy agrees that continuing to vaccinate people against B/Yamagata does not benefit public health.

Additionally, there is a slight chance of B/Yamagata accidentally infecting the workers who manufacture the flu vaccine. The viruses, grown in eggs, are inactivated before being put into the shots: You cannot get influenza from the flu shot. But worker exposure to live B/Yamagata might occur before it's rendered harmless.

That hypothetically could lead to a reintroduction of a virus that populations have waning immunity to because B/Yamagata is no longer making people sick. While that risk is very low, McCarthy said it doesn’t make sense to produce thousands of gallons of a likely extinct virus.

It is possible that B/Yamagata continues to exist in pockets of the world that have less comprehensive flu surveillance. However, scientists aren’t worried that it is hiding in animals because humans are the only host population for B lineage flu viruses.

Scientists determined that B/Yamagata disappeared in a relatively short period of time, and this in and of itself is a success, said McCarthy. That required collaboration and data sharing from people all over the world, including countries that the U.S. has more tenuous diplomatic relationships with, like China and Russia.

“I think the fact that we can do that shows that we can get some things right,” he said.

Sarah Boden is an independent health and science journalist based in Pittsburgh.

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gamecube was the best designed controller of all time exclusively for the button cluster that gave you easy thumb roll access to all buttons but also gave you the a button as a thumb rest (because it’s the one you press the most) and took into account the frequency with which each button gets pressed in its design rather than doing the stupid diamond design that gives no button priority and rests your thumb in the shitty blank space between buttons

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J2 (SixTONES)

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date night!

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People don’t understand the concept of liking two characters’ relationship in multiple contexts. They can be lovers in one setting and just friends in another, their dynamic doesn’t have to be consistent in every piece of art I make.

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I explained the concept of "blorbo from my shows" to my 71 year old immigrant grandfather because I referenced it in passing and I thought nothing of it, until today when he said "I think I'll watch peaky blinders tonight and see my blorbo from my shows" referring, of course, to Cillian Murphy playing Tommy Shelby

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Suit And Tie Kagurabachi

Here's a drawing based on Kagurabachi Chapter 60.

I hope you enjoy this drawing! Enjoy! :D

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Back w the Kagurabachi boys 👏

Look, after ch 60 I doubt we’re gonna get a moment for these two to grieve, so i made that moment. They both need a hug

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my favorite thing about kagurabachi is that, no matter how serious the subject is, EVERY TIME the dad shows up in a flashback, he's wearing a goofy ahh shirt a small recurring gag that gives him so much character

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Just two boys

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The case files of Jeweler Richard spoiler part 6 ( This is absolutely one of the most adorable moment between them)

Seigi and Richard were going back to the mansion.

Seigi "Maybe I am being a worry worrywart, but what's going on with this Octavia thing? I heard about your meeting with Jeffrey and Henry, is everything okay?"

Richard " I'll have to save both the apologies and explanations for another day. But I am confident that we're slowly getting closer to the heart of the matter"

Seigi "..Well, that's good. Is there anything I can do?"

Richard "I need you to be patient. I don't need a gun that will fire on my word. All I want from you is a friend who will stand right beside me and look at the world in a slightly different light."

Seigi "Huh? Oh....oh....." (totally flustered)

Richard "Seigi are you all right? I know I made you walk quite a distance, and they didn't make you wear a respirator or anything while painting...are you feeling unwell?"

Seigi wants to say he is okay, but no words come out. He stops in place and goes silent. Richard stops pushing the bike, too.

Seigi pulls out his phone and, with the camera mode of panorama open, takes a picture. (He didn't take a picture of Richard, just the scenery)

Richard is puzzled "What are doing?"

Seigi "No, I uhm...I just suddenly got the urge to take a picture. Just one"

Provence's sky, the fields of olive trees, the dry fallen grasses, the plastic bottles carelessly tossed aside, and the white stone paths -<listen to this. Well, don't actually listen, because I can't say it out loud, but just guess.>

<My dear boss called me his friend>

<He said all he wanted from me was a friend. Which meant I was his friend>

Seigi is sooooo happy 😊 so much that he doesn't know what to do. He knows that their boss and part timer relationship lasted only until the fall of his second year at college, and in the meantime, they had gotten closer, Seigi deep down already considered them being friends.

Seigi silly monologue lol --> <What are friends in the first place? Was a friend just a promotion from acquaintance? If that were the case, surely you would know what rank you were at and why you'd been promoted? Had I advanced in that way? Had I made some great leap forward since my second year of college, in terms of compatibility? I didn't really think so. Maybe that was why, even though I knew we were getting closer, I told myself not to get a big head. I convinced myself that it couldn't possibly be that simple.

Which is why now I feel like I've taken a blow at my heart out of the blue, I was so happy that I felt like singing, dancing and screaming, and doing cartwheels, but that would make look suspicious and scare people as well, and then this man would have no choice but to say he didn't want to be friends with me anymore. And that would suck, it would be embarrassing enough for him to notice how happy those words had made me. Richard liked to keep things cool and rational. I should find a way to follow his lead.>

Seigi is soooo happy and resume walking and try to keep his mouth in check. Richard is embarrassed as well and accidentally kick the bike multiple times, and they both seem to not be able to walk straight xD

Seigi tries to straighten himself and start walking like a wooden soldier, reminding himself to be normal.

Richard "....You're so easy to read"

Seigi "Huh? What do you mean?"

Richard "Nothing at all" but "...the feeling is mutual"

Richard keeps on bumping his leg into the bike's pedal twice as much as before until they finally arrive at the villa 😆

Seigi internally commented that it was an odd behaviour for a man who seems to be fundamentally incompatible with the word clumsy.

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Sometimes brain decides to randomly remind me of how Seigi fantasized about marrying his male friend when he was younger and was convinced that’s a totally Straight(TM) thing to fantasize about. This man is such a fucking disaster (affectionate).

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An Ivory Okimono Of a Dragon Having His Teeth Examined. Meiji Period, Signed Nimin/Futsumin.

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tgcf memes part 2 [ids in alt] pt 1

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Sometimes you’ve just got to think of your favorite character getting fucked against a wall to get through the work day.

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By popular demand: normal things to do to your bestie